Sometimes I hate my phone

As a wife and mother, there are several phone calls that you dread.  The call that something has happened to a parent, the call from your teenager that they have been in a car accident, the call from your daughter six hours away in college crying in pain.  I have received all these calls and they are terrifying.  It is in our innate self of being that we worry for the ones that we love.  But, when I got the call, the call that I somehow knew I was going to get, I was calm, cool and collected, ready to hear and understand all the information that was going to start being thrown at me.

It came two days after my biopsy, as promised, from the very resident that performed the biopsy.  I was walking up my front porch and unlocking the door when my cell started to ring.  Ali, my youngest was following close behind.  When I saw the number on the phone I told her that I had to take the call having recognized the number from the day before when the doctor called to check up on me.  

The doctor calmly waited until I got into the house and as I walked in the door I dropped my keys on my desk in the foyer and grabbed a pen and paper.  I walked over to the kitchen table and sat down, perched on a stool waiting to hear the word.  Malignancy.  It really is an  ugly word.

She told me that she doesn't like to call and give bad news, apologizing for what she was about to tell me.  Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, grade 3.  As I was scribbling this down on the paper I realized that Ali was standing behind me, watching me write the three little words that would change her life as well.  She came around and looked at me with tears in her eyes and went upstairs while I finished the call.  Grade 3, not the grade you want.  Not like an A, more like an F.  3 equals aggressive, fast growing.  

I finished the phone call, and I think I thanked her.  Not for the diagnosis, but for the care she displayed with me for the last three days.  She was genuine and nothing she said felt rehearsed and it was comforting in an odd way.

I called Greg.  He was on a bus coming back from visiting with Amanda, our oldest.  She is finishing her sophomore year in nursing at Case Western.  When he answered, the first thing I said was, "I have cancer".  I think hitting him with a baseball bat might have had less of an impact.  Sadly he spent the next 6 1/2 hours by himself, on a bus, contemplating the future of us.

I went upstairs to check on Ali.  Amazing girl that she is, and it probably explains why she is the Valedictorian of her graduating class, she was sitting on her bed doing her math homework and preparing for the upcoming IB exams.  We talked a few minutes and both vowed that there would be nothing kept hidden, even our tears would be open.  

Several  more calls were made.  My parents were waiting nervously.  It was not an easy thing to say, especially to my father.  I couldn't call Amanda until later as she was working at Cleveland Clinic.  I texted her to call me when she had time.

The funny thing about calling Amanda, the future nurse.  She was the only one that I called and gave the medical terminology.  "I have cancer", was what everyone else heard.  "Invasive Ductal Carcinoma" was what I told her.  Her reply, "so you have cancer?"  It sounded so simple when she said it with her sleepy voice.

So yes, sometimes I hate my phone.  Sometimes it is the bearer of bad news and sometimes it makes me give bad news.  That day, April 19th, it was both.